evidently a signal to Drusillet, who took out a reading card, face yellowed with age, and stepped toward Phaethon.
Drusillet said, 'Open your thoughtspace, please, New Kid. We need to see what you have to offer. Medical routines is what we mostly need. Though information structuring, data compression, and migration techniques also pay off. Let me log you on to the mentality and run a check-through.' And she stepped forward and began to apply the reading head of the card to a jack in Phaethon's shoulder board.
Phaethon brushed her hand aside before she could meddle with his suit controls.
Drusillet stepped back, mouth open, and she darted a fearful look at Ironjoy. The metal cusps that hid her eyes partly masked her expression, but evidently she had not expected to be rebuffed.
Phaethon spoke: 'Sir (or is it miss ... ?) forgive me, but we have not been properly introduced. And I have personal and very severe reasons for wishing not to log on to the mentality. But perhaps a word or two of explanation would reassure me. Were you thinking of simply making free with my property? Were you attempting to make pirate-copies of my routines? There are a dozen constables floating nearby.' He gestured toward the swarm of bee-sized metal implements, which buzzed through the air overhead.
'No cops!' Ironjoy held up all four hands at once, an eerie, almost menacing, gesture. 'New Kid is disoriented. He thinks he is still alive. He thinks the constables will protect him. Explain reality to him! I go. Events will be adjusted.' And with that, he turned with a snap of his green-shivering garments and strode off down the path between the pharmaceutical bushes.
Drusillet was staring at Phaethon in fascinated half-fear. Oshenkyo squatted down not far away, humming to himself, and drawing squirming circles in the dirt with a twig. Phaethon stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his head forward, legs spread, his black cloak falling in folds across his armored shoulders, around his elbows. For a moment, no one spoke.
Drusillet said to Phaethon, 'You don't understand how things work here.'
'I am attentive. Explain.'
'Ironjoy's not an Afloat, not really. He's an Ashore; he just doesn't care how much time he adds on to his sentence. Parts of his brain died, a long time ago, from old age, but he had the other parts propped up with Invariant mind-viruses that they give out for free. Even to us. Anyway, Ironjoy runs the thought-shop here. He's the only one around who can sell us goodies, or who can run a search engine to locate assignments in the dark markets and back nets.'
'How does this Ironjoy fellow find assignments for you?' asked Phaethon.
Drusillet tucked a strand of her hair between her lips and sucked. Then she shivered and smiled. 'You'd be surprised! Everyone always thinks the machines can do everything better and smarter and faster than anyone, so how can anyone ever get a job? But they can't do everything at once, and so there are certain jobs which, even if we do them slower and stupider, we can still do them for cheaper. Like me. The last thing I did, was going through Devolkushend's memories to prepare his autobiography, and cutting out or glossing over the parts of his memory that don't make for good theater. It was rough work, living his stupid life over and over again, but he's got some fans, or something, so I guess he wanted it done, and on the cheap, too. It required some human judgment; I got a judgment-routine from Ironjoy for that, one of those things put out by Semi-Warlock Critics.'
'Did I correctly hear Ironjoy say you had a Cerebelline neuroform? You express yourself in linear fashion, like a basic, not like a global.'
She suddenly looked shy and sad. 'Sub-Cerebelline. Think of a mass-mind with a split personality. As long as my other personalities don't come to the forefront, as long as I don't weave myself back into a global whole, I think and act like you lonely people. Just one mind, one point of view, all alone. It's what I have to do to keep my children safe.'
Phaethon was curious, but saw she would not say more on that topic. Instead, he asked her about her work: 'How does Devolkushend, when he hires you, escape falling under the Hortators' opprobrium?'
'Oh, he's a Nevernext. They hate the Hortators. Nevernexts, deviants, freaks, they still cut deals with us. And a lot of things are done on the sly, or through schools with high privacy restrictions. Especially now during the masquerade. Some of us dress up and sneak off to go look at the real people...' Her face took on a look of wistful longing. Phaethon pictured her in masquerade, in the rain, peering up at a window or balcony for a distant glimpse of a grown child who might no longer know her. It was a pathetic picture, disturbing. Was it accurate? He did not know.
She said: 'The Hortators aren't the constables, after all, and they can't get a warrant to read someone's mind.'
Oshenkyo stood up suddenly and tossed the twig he had been toying with away into the brush with an abrupt motion. 'Ironjoy's top man around here, for sure. Makes sure we all get along, all get some work, some grub, some dream-stuff so we can stand to make it to another sunset. He got good stuff in his shop, good dreams, bad dreams, new thoughts, new selves. You play around, you jack in new stuff, maybe one day you find yourself a persona who can stand living here without no hope. Turn yourself into Mr. Right. But we're all good friends here. We share and share alike. You got some good stuff on your back; maybe you got some good stuff in your head. Why not help us out, eh?'
Phaethon said, 'I may be able to help you out a great deal. Ironjoy's monopoly seems to be hindering any capital formation. Your 'share and share alike policies,' as you call them, certainly would discourage the type of long-term investment we would all welcome. From what you say, the Hortators are much weaker here than I imagined. Among the deviants and Nevernexts there may be enough markets for us, enough work to be had, that, with some new policies, new leadership, and hard work, some real growth and prosperity could be brought to this little community. And perhaps even a type of immortality could be regained; I knew that Neptunian neurocircuits, in their zero temperatures, suffer very little degradation over the centuries.'
Oshenkyo was grinning; clearly the idea appealed to him. He touched his new ear thoughtfully.
Drusillet said in a hushed tone: 'What kind of thoughtspace do you carry? What level of integrator is installed in that suit of yours? Do you have enough to carry out the same functions Ironjoy's shop-mind can carry out?'
'Perhaps if I don't have what I need, I could build it out of raw materials.'
Drusillet said in a voice of slow astonishment, 'Build? What do you mean, build? Only machines build things. Men don't build things, not now-a-days men.'
'I build things. And I am very old-fashioned, in my own way.'
'How?'
'With determination, will, and foresight. With my brain. With the circuits in my suit. There is plenty of carbon in the environment. I can design and grow circuits and small ecologies.'
He saw their looks of astonishment. He smiled, 'Well, I am an engineer, after all.'
'Engineer,' murmured Oshenkyo. Then: 'Hey, engineer, my house grows my cakes and lamps all squirley. Maybe you can fix?'
'I'll certainly take a look at it. The house-mind probably operates from a modular set of neural base-formats. Any part of a working house could be used as a formatting seed to restart the program.'
Drusillet said, 'Engineer, what about finding assignments? If you and Ironjoy can both run a search, we'll find twice the jobs! Can you do it?'
'Perhaps. The Hortators allow me access to the mentality; even if I do not log on myself, I can access my account through a remote, or even through a script board. It's not impossible. Tell me what might be required. What is the priority and actions-per-second of the search engine Ironjoy uses to find your assignments? In which part of the mentality is he stationed? How does he negotiate the antiviral buffers without hiring a Cerebelline to certify him?'
Drusillet's enthusiasm vanished. She spoke with a twitch of worry. 'Ironjoy may not like it, not if too much changes too fast.'
'I will explain how it is in everyone's long-term best interest. You people act rationally to further your own interests, do you not?' Phaethon asked. Although, it occurred to him that, if no one here could afford a noetic inspection of each other's thoughts, no one would have any motive to keep their motives pure. Ironjoy theoretically could maintain a whole host of evil impulses and hypocrisies.
Oshenkyo said, 'Sure. We all swell people.'
Drusillet spoke with less conviction. 'Oh, yes, we're rational. The Hortators are just wicked to exile me here. I didn't do anything wrong.'
